203 Brian Mackenzie: The Art Of The Breath

Breathing is the physiological intercept to our mental state. So, if things are going haywire, I can turn back to my breathing and control the physiological reactions that are happening in my mind. If I can take a step back and do that, I’m actually fixing the entire system. – Brian Mackenzie

How can you enhance your health through nostril breathing versus breathing through the mouth?

Discover the process of rewiring the subconscious mind through conscious training, breathwork, and heightened awareness.

[tweetthis]”There’s an integrative piece in the body that breathing is a by-product of what’s going on in the brain. Our emotions, pain, or what we’re cognitively thinking is actually our respiration rate if we’re not consciously aware.” – @brianmackenzie http://bit.ly/wfpodcast[/tweetthis]

How he trained himself to no longer breathe through the mouth as he slept.

Cueing nostril breath practices vs. breathing through the mouth and when one is more appropriate than the other for high performance

What you can gain and learn from training yourself to only breathe through the nostrils.

The fact that the yoga world has been focusing on breathing solely through the nostrils for ages.

Power Quotes From The Show

[tweetthis]”Meditation is a practice that you put into play that becomes a part of what you’re doing. I can breathe, visualize, or focus on some sounds. We need to make these changes in the moment so that we can refocus on the task at hand.” – @brianmackenzie http://bit.ly/wfpodcast[/tweetthis]

“By design, we want comfort and we want life to be easy. Just look at the world we live in today. It’s so easy today to get food or whatever we want at any given moment but go back a hundred years and it wasn’t possible. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it but we get so focused on what is making things easy and comfortable that we forget that the only reason we make change is because of discomfort. Getting caught in that, we get afraid of stepping outside our comfort complex of technology.” – Brian Mackenzie

“I daily catch myself spending too much time on my phone but I know what I need to do as a result of that. So, if I’ve been on my phone for too long, I know I need to take a visual break because my visual system actually works with my physiology and my entire body reacts. In those situations, I do a breathing pattern, look 20 feet away from me in the distance, listen to music, or go outside to easily change what I’m doing for a few minutes to instantly improve how I feel.” – Brian Mackenzie

“Meditation is a practice that you put into play that becomes a part of what you’re doing, but I can breathe, look at my visual system, or focus in on some sounds. I can do a lot of things in the moment and this is what we’re really trying to teach. We want to be able to make these changes in the moment so that I can focus on what I need to or be open to what I need to do.” – Brian Mackenzie

“Technology is only being used to get us back to what it is that we’re capable of actually doing ourselves. Technology is going to help and allow us to do a lot more, but how far are we removing ourselves from these basic physiological responses? Technologically is going to allow us to get back to that place.” – Brian Mackenzie

“Everybody has a response to fear. Even Navy SEALS have the exact same response that you and I have and these are the supposed to be the people who aren’t afraid of anything, but that’s not true; we’re all the same and we all have the same reaction. It’s about how fast they come back to their baseline. Most of us have a great jolt of fear and then it takes awhile to come back down or we need to be in that state of anxiety or sympathy for a longer period of time. That’s where our breathing is playing the biggest role.” – Brian Mackenzie

About Brian Mackenzie

Brian Mackenzie is an expert in the development and application of custom protocols to optimize human health and performance. His work harnesses and integrates respiratory, movement, strength, conditioning, endurance, and temperature based training approaches to elicit unprecedented positive results.

His protocols have been used to accelerate and raise both mental and physical performance in world-class Olympic and professional athletes, top executives, and elite military operators, as well as to improve the health for people suffering from various chronic illnesses. Everyday people have also used Brian’s tools to reduce pathologic stress and to vastly heighten their mental and physical well being and performance.

Brian is himself a highly accomplished athlete. He completed the Ironman (Canada, 2004), completed both the The Western States 100 mile and The Angeles Crest 100 mile runs using adapted training protocols he developed to prevent injury and fatigue. Also prolific writer, Brian co-authored the book Power Speed Endurance, The New York Times Best Seller UnBreakable Runner, and UnPlugged, which assesses the integration of emergent technology and human performance. His programs have been featured in Outside Magazine, Men’s Health, Runners World, Triathlete Magazine, Men’s Journal, ESPN Rise, as well as periodicals such as The Economist. Brian and his protocols have been featured in 3 of Timothy Ferriss’ New York Times bestselling books including: “The 4-Hour Body” and “Tools of Titans”.

Brian MacKenzie’s programs have been taught at hundreds of seminars worldwide and are used by thousands of athletes ranging from beginners to elites via his “Power Speed Endurance” platform and by private consultation.